Posted on 04/29/2019 11:51:52 AM PDT by Kaslin
RUSH: Snerdley just asked me what was the best moment of my weekend. I had vowed not to talk about it. You know, I don’t talk about myself. All right. Let me see if I can… Look at the clock. Okay. I played golf yesterday. The people I was supposed to play with got sick and couldn’t play. So it was just me playing by myself with my caddie, which is good, because I played 27 holes in three hours, and you really get through this, and there’s no time to get down on yourself, no time to get pessimistic. No time.
Just, bam, bam, bam you go. Number 17 at the course I played is a par 5, a 500-yard par 5, and the second shot (if you hit a decent enough drive), you have to get over a couple of pretty tall trees if you have any prayer at all of either going for the green or getting close to it. Otherwise, you have to go to around those trees, and there’s no way that you can get on the green in two. But your drive has to be perfectly placed, which mine was. It was about 290 yards.
I had a little uphill lie after it was all over, following wind that helped the drive. So I grabbed my Hybrid 3, the Rescue version of a 3-iron. I’ve got 213 yards to the pin. I’ve got these two trees. They’re not tiny. I mean, they’re not sky-high, but you’ve got to have a club that’s gonna get you over those trees. Normally a 3-iron, 5-iron, 6-iron (unless you know what you’re doing), you’re not gonna be able to get over them. You can’t get there — I couldn’t — with anything less than a 4-iron.
So I grabbed the Rescue 3, the Hybrid 3, and I made sure in the backswing to get the club up. I flushed it. I flushed. It had a perfect right-to-left draw (“curve,” for those of you in Rio Linda), and as I’m watching… I flushed it, folks. There’s nothing… You flush a golf shot right in middle of club face, it just feels almost orgasmic. I’m watching it and I’m watching it, and I say, “Darn it, it’s drawing too much. It’s gonna end up maybe pin high but left and maybe in a bunker.” So I give up looking at it. The caddie says, “Oh, my God. Oh, my God. It could have gone in! It could have gone in!”
I said, “No, no. It’s way too far left.” So we get up there and we’re looking for the ball. We look beyond the green, can’t find it. We look to the right of the green, which trails off into the water; we can’t find it. We look for it everywhere. Is it short? We went back 50 yards, couldn’t find it. The caddie says, “It’s gotta be in there. It’s gotta be in!” So he walks up to the cup, peers down, into the cup, looks up in frustration, puts his hands on his hips.
“It’s in there!” he said. “It’s in there! You holed it!”
So I had a double eagle from 213 yards with a Hybrid 3. I’ve got the picture pulling the ball out of the cup. I’ve got a picture of ball in the cup with Rush EIB on it. Titleist number 30 for 30 years broadcast anniversary, and I’m told that never in the history of this course has there been a double eagle, 213 yards. It hit. We found the ball, hit about five yards short of the green on the left, and kicked right and rolled almost the length of the green. The cup was way at the back of the green. It rolled almost the length of the green to get back in the hole.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: By the way, folks, one thing about my double eagle, in the official world of golf, it never happened because there were no witnesses. If you hit a hole-in-one and it’s just you playing by yourself and you tell people you had a hole-in-one, they’ll say, “Fine and dandy,” but it doesn’t go in any book, it doesn’t count, because there aren’t any witnesses. You have to be playing in a threesome or foursome where everybody sees it.
It’s the same thing here with a shot like a double eagle. The caddie and I saw it. It happened. But in the world of golf it didn’t happen because there are no witnesses. And since people are people and lie and make things up you have to discount it. But it doesn’t matter to me. It happened. I did it. And I had a great time telling you about it. But it won’t count for anything. Like the club where it happened will make no official mention of it ‘cause it hasn’t been witnessed, hasn’t been confirmed.
Golf is a game of many things, including honor. And even though everybody who plays the game is considered to bring honor and respect for the rules of golf — except Goldfinger in Oddjob, they didn’t, but other people do. Even with those assumptions, you still have to have shots like that witnessed before they are officially recognized.
“How straight is the shot?”
For a carry of about 270 yards, that’s a swing speed of about 113 mph, which is PGA Tour caliber.
Only a non golfing Googlerite would attempt to make a correction here that a Double Eagle is an "Albatross". I've never heard it and it's never been used on any PGA tournament coverage since it is such a ridiculous term.
They might as well call a shot into a water hazard a "Turtle shot" or a "Fish Splash".............
You heard it here first.........LOL!
Louis Oosthuizen made one the Masters a few years back..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dZoUJZ0yDTA
Hardest shot in golf.
He said he had a tailwind.
In the youtube video link I posted the announcer I think it’s Jim Nance...calls it a double eagle then albatross.
“He said he had a tailwind.”
:)
Your keyword there was AVERAGE. Rush said he had the wind behind him. And maybe the fairways were amenable to roll that day. Maybe he caught a cart path. Who knows, but it’s not at all out of the realm of probability.
And I enjoyed hearing about it!!! Good for you and thanks Rush!
did you ever see him on the Golf Channel's "Haney Project"? That was great but it didn't even compare to when Charles Barkley was Haney's failed project.........LOL!
did you ever see him on the Golf Channel’s “Haney Project”?
...
No. Was he any good?
I know Barkley is a basket case. I’ve seen the spasm he calls a golf swing.
It was the week before last that I watched the Long Drive hitting championship on the Golf Channel and the woman who won it hit a drive of 413 yards..............LOL!
Granted, there's a major difference between athletes at this venue and those who compete on the PGA tour.
But to address your comment, yes, the women are now hitting long.........
Eagle equals two under par for a hole or a hole in one on a par three.
That is one of the quirks in golf terms. Double eagle in math terms
would be 2x2 or four under. But in gold it doesn’t mean that.
It wasn't about whether or not Rush was good but rather that he enlisted Haney to help with his golf game and it was televised.
Like most reality shows, it was just entertainment and from beginning to end, Rush did show some improvement.
One has to consider tho, Rush's number one passion is rightfully golf and he has gone to every extreme to improve his game.......And I admire him for it.
And he now has access via money and political connections to golf virtually every course he chooses to play. Most notable connection being President Trump.........How great is that?
I don't know how I was going to get to sleep tonight had you not provided me with that critical information........Thank you, Thank you, Thank you!!!!!!
You’re welcome. Glad you enjoyed my typo.
Anyway watch out for the albatross.
been playing golf since I was 16 -(53 years) and it was albatross then...
hope you don’t go ballistic about a condor.
Albatross isn’t exactly unknown in the golf world for sure.... Maybe
unknown to some but that is the way things are. None of us know all things.
*********
http://www.scottishgolfhistory.org/origin-of-golf-terms/bogey/#albatross
Albatross is the term for three under par and is a continuation of the
birdie and eagle theme, but is in fact a British term. Ab Smith said his
group used the phrase ‘double eagle’ for three under (see Birdie above),
which is still the term most Americans and the name for their Double Eagle
Club (membership by invitation only).
Three under par is a very rare score and an albatross is a very rare bird.
The exact origin is unclear but the first known reference in 1929 indicates
that it had been in use for some time before then. John G Ridland, who
scored an ‘albatross’ in India in 1934, theorized that it was the introduction
of steel shafted clubs in 1920s which made this score common enough to
necessitate a name for it.
Me too, and it was always a double eagle.........oh well, who really cares.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.